Today…I am not quite certain what to feel about today. It was a good day, and everything went well for my charge, but I can’t quite say that this is the right direction to take. Of course, I admit that I am finding it hard to trust any of my decisions just now. So I will write it honestly, and you, my reader, may perhaps judge what is best.
Ted had just gotten off a shift driving some tourists around the lake when he got a call from Elaine. He was tired and not feeling particularly sociable, but he had been wanting to hear from her, so he answered the phone. “Hello, there.”
“Hi! What are you doing right now?”
“Getting set to pour myself a very large glass of wine.”
“Ooh, sounds lovely. Can you pour me one too?”
“Sure,” Ted said, laughing. “I could probably use more than one.”
“Have more than one, certainly, but would you mind terribly if I drank my own?”
Ted blinked, puzzled. “You want to come over?”
“I may actually already be in the car, about ten minutes away.” There was a faint sheepishness in her voice now, as if she was not quite certain of her welcome. “But I can turn around—”
“No, no, of course not,” Ted said, casting something of a frantic glance around his house, which was in disarray, putting it mildly. “You want to meet me at Sandra’s?” He hurriedly dug a shirt out of a pile at one end of his sofa, giving it a quick sniff to see if it was clean enough to go out. He then gave himself a similar sniff, with less pleasant results.
“Oh, well,” Elaine said, her voice a bit more hesitant now, “I was kind of hoping you could show me some of those things you were talking about. Or is it too late to go out on the water?”
Ted hurried into the bathroom and grabbed a damp washcloth from the shower. “Not too late, no,” he said, though he thought for a moment about the hours he had spent that day driving around the same lake.
“But it is cooler now, and Elaine is coming to see you, not the water,” I reminded him.
His weariness seemed to recede, and he smiled at the phone. “You know, it might actually be nice. Out there under the stars.”
“We could watch the sunset!” Elaine said, her excitement returning. “That sounds amazing. Where should I meet you?”
Ted gave her directions, further reassured by the thought that his boat is much cleaner than his home. He met her outside the house and guided her right down to the dock, admitting as he did so that his house was a bit of a disaster. “I’ve been out all day today and yesterday and the day before that,” he explained, “so I haven’t had any time to clean.”
Elaine paused on the boards of the dock. “Do you get sick of it? We don’t have to go out tonight if you’re tired.”
“No, I’m fine,” he said quickly, stepping onto the boat.
She gave him a skeptical glance. “I’ve seen a messy house before, Ted, I promise I’ll live.”
He smiled and held out a hand to her. “As long as you don’t ask me to tell you what kind of birds we see or want to go tubing, I’ll have a great time, I promise.”
She took his hand. Now her glance was significantly different, and it made him grin. “Yes, you will,” she murmured and got into the boat.
They did not go far—Ted drove them out into the middle of the lake, where the rosy sky stretched bright and beautiful both above and below them. He switched the engine off and let the boat drift, bobbing on waves of its own wake, while he stretched out on his back next to Elaine on the prow. She rested her head on his shoulder and they talked for a long time—about the sky and other times that they have watched the sunset, about their families, about their jobs, about people who have hurt them. This time, with the gently lapping water and the swaying boat and the sky slowly shifting to rich blue and then black, their conversation remained serious, and a part of each soul had opened by the time the stars were all out.
Still, in the very moment that Elaine reached up to touch Ted’s face, in the moment that she sat up and began to unbutton her shirt, Ted thought of Cole. It was only for an instant, and the memory faded in the time it took him to sit up, as well, but it was certainly there.
That gives me reason to doubt. Should Ted initiate a relationship with Elaine when his thoughts are still with someone else? Should he leave behind the possibilities with Cole for the reality of Elaine? I am not quite certain yet what he wants, and so that makes me unsure of how to advise him.
I think that it is best to wait and be careful with this one, but then, that was my strategy with Shannon. See how well that turned out.
Perhaps I should talk to Danit. She has always had good advice for me.
At least Ted is happy. I returned to check on him once more before I left him for the night, and he was lying on his back while Elaine curled up in the driver’s seat of the boat, asleep under Ted’s shirt. Ted was wakeful and peaceful, listening to the water and her soft breathing.
If he is content, what more should I say?